


Polaris

by SincerelyChaos



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Codependency, Developing Relationship, Love Story, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 11:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6656809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SincerelyChaos/pseuds/SincerelyChaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where Sherlock had once given himself to self-destruction as a very last resource, he now gives himself to John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Polaris

**Author's Note:**

> Previously posted as part of the haphazard ficlet collection.
> 
> Now on its own.

 

 

 

_Sherlock Holmes is the kind of person that shows up and fills the entire room with his mere presence._

It is, therefore, not strange to think that he also showed up and invaded the entire life of one John Watson.

What is strange, however, is that the fact that this particular John Watson let him do just that.

But John did let him; Sherlock would point and John would follow, sometimes blindly. He would complain, he would make sarcastic remarks and he would at times attempt to ignore the man who was pointing, but eventually he would always end up following Sherlock, relived to be given a direction. Because that was one of the many things he'd been lacking before Sherlock showed up.

After the war, John Watson had felt that total and utter lack of direction, the kind that leaves a void that cripples a person more than any limp or trashed shoulder ever could. A feeling that John had last felt when he was fourteen years old and wondered who the boy in the mirror was, looking back at him like a stranger.

Sherlock showed up and offered what John was desperately missing. John took what was offered, filling his cup until the echo of emptiness became less and less pronounced. It was codependency at its finest, it was need at its barest.

It was love, or something like it.

 

* * *

 

 

_Sherlock Holmes is the kind of person who is prone to addiction._

It is, therefore, not strange to consider how fast and how seemingly unavoidable he grew addicted to the companionship with one John Watson.

What is strange, however, is how that addiction slowly led to a shift between them, one they never acknowledged or maybe even thought about.

 

If you feed someone who is hungry, eventually they'll grow stronger and learn how to hunt for food themselves. And John was nothing but fast when it came to adapting to new situations. Once he grew used to the new direction - to once again having a direction - he began creating new directions for himself.

What caused them to entwine even more rather than shift slowly apart as John grew more assertive was the fact that the man John had followed also came to need John. When Sherlock at rare times found himself temporarily lost, it was John he looked to, it was John he set his eyes - all contained desperation at the sudden loss of ground - on, and it was John who found himself discreetly nodding Sherlock back to the path he'd himself chosen.

Where Sherlock had once given himself to self-destruction as a very last resource, he now gave himself to John. It was unspoken, a slow transition, but in the end, it became the ultimate proof that Sherlock Holmes had given himself fully to a new addiction. It was, after all, the only addiction he ever died for.

_It was, however, also the only addiction he'd ever lived for._

He found himself living for breathless laughter at inappropriate moments, for silent agreement over a corpse on a crime scene, for the little crinkle between John’s eyebrows that appeared whenever Sherlock had lead them both astray.

The fact that that tiny crinkle would make him stop, make him reconsider his ways, became the final proof that while Sherlock Holmes led their way, John Watson was his Polaris; his rarely used navigation system. Because John would let Sherlock lead the way, but in time, John would become the one who led them. He would still follow - only a step behind - but he wouldn't let Sherlock lead them just anywhere.

For the first time since he was eleven, Sherlock had someone who grounded him, someone who was unshakeable and ruthlessly steady in all the ways he himself had never been. And Sherlock would look to him for direction, wouldn't allow himself stray in a direction where John Watson wouldn't follow him. It was codependency at its finest, addiction at its rawest.

It was love, or at least something very much alike it.

 

 

 


End file.
